Baby's death shines spotlight on human trafficking

The death of a battered two-year-old girl in India has thrust human trafficking in the country into the spotlight.

The girl, dubbed Falak by doctors, was taken to a New Delhi hospital in January by a 14-year-old girl who claimed to be her mother.

Doctors say Falak had severe head injuries, broken arms, branded cheeks, and bite marks covering her body when she was admitted.

For two months Indians followed the story as she underwent multiple surgeries. But on Thursday she suffered a cardiac arrest - the third in her short life - and died.

The case made headlines across the country, but it was just the beginning of a much darker story.

Once police began looking into the case, they uncovered a suspected human trafficking ring.

'Slave trade'

According to reports, the teenage girl who took Falak to hospital had been sold into a brothel. She began living with Rajkumar, a man she met through the brothel.

One day, he allegedly brought home baby Falak.

The woman believed to actually be Falak's biological mother, 22-year-old Munni, was tracked down in Rajasthan.

Munni had been sold by her first husband to another man.

She was reportedly forced to leave the baby with the teenager when she was sold. She also left behind her two other children.

The Indian home ministry says it is a case of human trafficking.

"This has turned out to be one of the biggest sex rackets involving minors and child prostitution and sale of women for marriage," Raaj Mangal Prasad, the head of India's Child Welfare Committee, told CNN.

"This shows this is a classic case where the magnitude of trafficking has come to light."

The girl is now in a juvenile home and Rajkumar has been detained by police - one of a handful of people arrested.

However, the UN estimates that at any one time 2.5 million people are victims of trafficking across the globe, and the most common form is sexual exploitation.

In a 2011 report the US State Department ranked India as a tier 2 country in terms of human trafficking, meaning it does not do enough to eliminate trafficking but is taking steps to curb the problem.

"Ninety per cent of trafficking in India is internal, and those from India's most disadvantaged social economic strata including the lowest castes are particularly vulnerable to forced or bonded labour and sex trafficking," the report said.

"Women and girls are trafficked within the country for the purposes of forced prostitution ... cities popular for tourism continue to be vulnerable to child sex tourism. Indian nationals engage in child sex tourism within the country and, to a lesser extent, in other countries."

Free trade is the oldest argument in federal politics and the issue that literally defined the federation era but opposition exists to the TPP, courtesy of the Investor-State Dispute Resolutions clause.